


Naïve Melodies

by yaakov



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Adultery, Character Study, F/M, Miscarriage, bottom!Louis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-26 19:01:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18184520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yaakov/pseuds/yaakov
Summary: Anne returns to the palace, after a loss and a kindling of love, to find her husband quite receptive.





	Naïve Melodies

Her husband, the king, kissed her hands when she told him. Then he let out a burst of boyish laughter, leaning forward to nudge her forehead with his own. After his moment of open joy, the king collected himself, straightened and drew himself up to his full height. He was scarcely taller than the diminutive queen herself, even in heeled shoes.

“That is excellent news. It will be a son, yes?”

 _Does he realize we can have no knowledge of this?_ Anne thought, her mouth falling open as she gathered words. 

“Of course,” she breathed. “If the Lord God wills it.”

“Well, _I_ will it,” Louis quipped, that silly grin of his tugging at his mouth. “And I’m the king.”

Anne allowed him to place a kiss on her forehead and waited until he had left to release her sigh. She closed her eyes for a brief moment and allowed herself a single naïve thought:

_I’ve done it. I’ll have given him a son._

The idea that she should bear the king many sons did not cross her blissful mind in that moment – not to mention that she knew the child’s sex no more than Louis did. In that moment she could not have been certain the child would even survive, but in her great relief, she did not permit the thought to pass through her mind.

Instead, she crossed to stand before a window to peer down into the gardens below. In her imagination, she fashioned a regal young man, dressed in elegance yet simplicity. His hair, blacker than ravens’ feathers, lie straight and thick upon his head. His skin had a healthy glow, his eyes were the clearest blue, and he was much taller than he had any right to be. _Louis’ mother was tall_ , Anne consoled herself.

She pictured his coronation – the finery, the applause, and the serene smile on his face. There was wisdom in his eyes, and caring, two things his father the king could only feign. Louis was absent from this coronation dream, as the circumstance would naturally dictate, but Anne did not care to spoil the dream by wondering what had befallen him. _Long live the King_.

Later, Anne would claim she knew intuitively the moment her son was lost. She had felt the life pass from her womb, she would say, just like women always said; but in truth, she had felt nothing of the sort. There were physical signs, and physical pain, but for long after she knew he was gone, she would sometimes still imagine. The picture of the regal young man did not vanish with the life within her. He had been in her heart all along, and there his memory would remain.

“What do you _mean_ , the child is lost?” she remembered Louis asking. It was in the same petulant tone he might ask the cardinal, “What do you _mean_ the duke has not yet arrived? What do you _mean_ the treaty does not allow me the purchase of a war galley? What do you _mean_?” It was never explanation Louis wanted; he wanted his whims and desires fulfilled and was annoyed by anything that dared prevent this.

At first, Anne had wondered if her husband might be grieving too. Then, she decided he must not be – or, at the very least, she did not like the thought of Louis grieving for her son. He would not have done it properly; he had never known the boy as she did.

Her silent grief distracted her from her marriage. While before her husband’s touch had been tolerable at best, the thought of returning to his bed made the bile rise in her throat. She had endured his wet kisses and clumsy hands and selfish methods for what – loss and heartache? Grief and nothing?

Even so, Anne vowed never to be cruel her husband. She sat beside him, supported him, advised him, and their life was hollow but tolerable. She knew she may never have a child, and she would never see her wise young raven-haired king stand before her, and just as certainly, she knew she would never experience love.

But Anne was queen, and her duty was to her king and his country – _her_ country, now. Love was for people with lesser concerns.

 

Queen Anne’s face was schooled and expressionless. She had walked into the palace as a different woman returning to the same place. Her skin felt warm when before she had been so cold – she had never truly known how cold until he had placed his hands on her skin. Her heart beat now when before her blood had been sluggish. Anne was _alive_ , so she could not now present herself at court as a dead woman, as that frozen queen decked in pearls.

But she had not expected the place around her to change. In truth, she had expected to find her husband lazily poking at a wooden ship, glass of wine in hand, vaguely annoyed at her prolonged absence. “What do you _mean_ I should shower that Musketeer who saved you with accolades? It is his job to protect my interests, is it not?”

Louis said nothing of the sort. For several moments, he only stared. 

The king was terrible at concealing his emotions. The flat expression he wore in court was one of genuine boredom, though Anne always hoped some mistook it for poise and self-control. Across the marbled hall he stood still, but every muscle in his body was taut, and for one awful moment, Anne thought he might run to embrace her. His entire heart filled his large brown eyes. _Has he gone mad?_ she wondered. In truth, the king had had an emotional past few months, what with his mother trying to depose him again, but this was something new.

He made as if to take a step the same moment Anne fell into a bow.

The king recovered his stumble and returned her bow, and then he strode towards her. The way Louis clasped and kissed her hands awoke a memory from years before, and Anne felt the heat of Aramis’ eyes on her back. 

 

When the king’s request came to her several evenings hence, Anne was unsurprised; she was only bemused why he had tarried so long. It was customary for them to make an attempt after her visits to the lake.

 _It will not be so intolerable this time_ , Anne thought as she prepared herself for His Majesty’s bed. All she had to do was close her eyes and imagine her Musketeer – feel his calloused hands warming her cold skin, inhale his smells of sweat and leather.

But it was impossible to imagine such things in bed with Louis. The experience was too dissimilar – her husband smelled of jasmine perfume, so strongly it was as if he had bathed in the stuff. His hands were clean but unpleasant, clammy and cold upon her thighs. His kisses were much the same – too much lip and spittle and with too clumsy a tongue. The king and queen never undressed fully when they went to bed, whereas she and Aramis had pulled off each other’s clothing desperately, hungry for skin. Anne had run her hands through Aramis’ careless hair, over and over again, but Louis’ oiled curls were neatly gathered and pinned back to preserve their buoyancy. Anne’s hand rose out of wishful habit but found it could only awkwardly pat her husband’s perfectly coiffed head. She bit back a grimace and pushed him away.

Louis’ eyes flashed with sudden anger, and for the briefest moment Anne felt afraid – _no one denies the king_ – but just as quickly the anger was pushed out by hurt, then confusion, and finally, Louis’ face settled into a complicated mixture of the three emotions. Anne’s hands were still on his shoulders. She considered pulling him back towards her, easing his hurt and anger with a kiss, but she could no longer stomach the thought of him above her.

Anne pushed the king onto his back and pulled herself on top of him. Louis’ head hit the pillows with a feeble, “ _Oh!_ ” He was surprised, his mouth stuck in a dumb little ‘o,’ but not altogether displeased. _Not displeased at all,_ Anne noted, feeling his arousal grow against her leg.

Or perhaps that wasn’t such a fail-proof sign of pleasure as she had thought.

“What are you doing?” Louis demanded.

“Something new,” Anne replied.

Her fingers deftly untied the lacing on the front of his bedshirt. She found the hem and began to lift, forcing Louis’ arms above his head as she unclothed him. It went as gracelessly as she would have expected, with him struggling and sputtering and trapped in the garment. When Anne finally managed to untangle him, his hair had become a frizzed disaster.

“You _could_ have just –“ Louis began irritably before a sudden smile broke across his face. “Why are you laughing?” he asked, even though it was he who was bubbling with laughter.

Anne realized she had been smiling. “I should let you up to go restyle your hair.”

“Don’t you dare.” Louis laughed and reached to pull Anne down to kiss him. She complied noiselessly, doing her best to ignore her husband’s ‘mms’ and hums. After a while she decided to remove her own bedgown, eliciting a whimper from her husband below.

She straddled him with her thighs and sat up, positioning herself. She placed a hand on Louis’ chest to prevent him from bucking like a randy stableboy beneath her and moved her hips to pleasure herself upon him. To accomplish this, she had to close her eyes. The scent of jasmine still reached her, but it no longer smothered her; from this distance, Anne could imagine the smell came from an invisible vase of wildflowers in the room.

”Oh!” Louis gasped.

 _Mother of God_ , Anne thought. _If only he could stay quiet_.

“Kiss me,” Louis pleaded. “Kiss me!”

Anne’s eyes flickered open. Her husband’s face was flushed and his eyes were hazy with pleasure. _Pleasure and love_ , Anne thought with dull horror. _Love? He cannot possibly love me in that way._

She closed her eyes again and leaned in to kiss him. She did her best to maintain her position, but it was somewhat difficult. She remembered the feeling of Aramis inside her, how he had filled her, and how neither of them had had to be mindful that a change of position might cause him to fall out. In a moment of rare blessing, Anne managed to keep her hold on her husband’s body as she met his lips in a kiss.

It was quite possibly the sloppiest kiss he had ever given her, his mouth covering various parts of her face in his wet and frenzied passion. Anne finally did grimace, at the same moment Louis met his pleasure with a quiet sigh against her face.

She remained atop him for a long moment, allowing his warm cock to relax inside her. Louis had wrapped his arms around her at some point, and while she remained in place, he nuzzled her face and neck with florid affection.

She murmured a few words and disentangled herself, covering herself before rising from the bed.

“Oh, I suppose I cannot keep you here forever,” Louis said.

 _No, you certainly cannot,_ Anne thought. She thought of her lover and smiled. All she would need to do is say the word, and he would be hers again.

She glanced over her shoulder to bid the king good night – and stopped at the peculiar expression she saw on his face. There was an uncharacteristically intelligent shrewdness in her husband’s eyes. But almost immediately it melted into a playful, vacuous grin.

“Go on,” he told her, looking down to lace his shirt over his pallid chest. He spared a hand to wave her away. “You’ll stand there all night teasing me.”

“Good night, Your Majesty.”

He could not possibly suspect a thing, Anne reasoned. She had imagined it.

She pushed it from her mind, all of it, and wondered how soon she could find an opportunity for Aramis to warm her once again.


End file.
